


Transformations

by merle_p



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Observant Effie, Slow Build, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5940432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Haymitch Abernathy encounters Effie – Effie the Person, not Effie Trinket, Capitol doll/death angel/fashion mannequin – he is almost too drunk to notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Germinal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Germinal/gifts).



> Germinal, happy Valentine's Day! I really hope you like this!

**After:**

When he comes to get her from her cell, she thinks he is there to kill her. He can’t blame her, all things considered, but he is still surprised to find how much it stings.

 

**Before:**

The first time Haymitch Abernathy encounters Effie – Effie the Person, not Effie Trinket, Capitol doll/death angel/fashion mannequin – he is almost too drunk to notice. They have been working together for four years (although _together_ might be somewhat of an exaggeration), and it’s the night after the Reaping, the fifth time he has watched Effie Trinket pull names out of a bowl, names he now pretends not to remember, although it doesn’t help, it doesn’t matter, because whatever their names are, he knows these children are far too young to die.

He hopes the alcohol will let him forget that, too, let him escape reality, at least for a little while. But it’s one of those nights when oblivion stubbornly refuses to save him from himself, and instead of passing out in the sweaty mess of his rumpled sheets, he finds himself crouching on the cold bathroom floor, puking his guts out, begging the powers that be to finally let him die.

He will never know what makes Effie seek him out at his house in the Victor’s Village that night, but this is where she finds him: on his knees, clammy forehead resting against the edge of the tub. Only barely, he hears the clack-clack of her steps filtering through the noise of the blood rushing in his ears, and he tilts his head in the direction of the sound until his cheek is pressing into the cracked ceramic of the tub. From this awkward angle, all he can see are her legs, wrapped up in purple stockings and golden heels, well-formed, slender, immaculate. He sees her step through the door and falter, sees her stagger slightly before she catches herself, and can imagine easily what she must think.

He closes his eyes, because he couldn’t care less, and waits for her to walk away.

She doesn’t. Instead, he hears her approach, her heels loud on the dirty tiles, and then he feels her hand, smooth and cool, come to rest against his forehead. He groans quietly and tries to move away, but instead finds himself turning into the touch. “Shhh,” he hears her say, soothingly, nonsensically, as if she is speaking to a child, “shhh,” and her fingers slide up his forehead and into his damp, matted hair. Then her hand disappears, but before he can even process the loss, it is replaced by a wet cloth, smelling vaguely of flowers, as soft and as cool as her hand had been. Idly, Haymitch wonders where in his bathroom she could have found something as delicate as this, but he doesn’t ask, and doesn’t open his eyes to see; simply lets her run the cloth over his face, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, and doesn’t speak up when she leans in to rinse the cloth in the bathtub and does it all again.

She doesn’t seem more inclined to speak than he is, although once he seems to hear her murmur: “What happened to you?” But that might just be the liquor playing tricks on him, and anyway, it’s not like he’s got an answer for her that he thinks she would want to hear.

The next day, on the train, it’s as if it never happened. Effie is back to sniping at him, for being late, for being irresponsible, and generally for being an ass. Her shrill voice makes his head feel like his brain is slowly leaking out of his skull, and when he looks at her from bleary eyes, her make-up is perfect and her mouth is tight. And still, after that night, as much as she chides and flutters and breathes disapproval at him like a dragon breathing fire, he is never quite able to forget that underneath all that fabric, underneath all the make-up and glitter and perfume hides an actual human being.

The problem is that he can’t quite decide if that makes things better or if it makes them worse.

 

**After:**

She still doesn’t trust him. Even after he’s gotten a rebel medic to look her over, after he’s strong-armed two women from District 8 into helping her bathe and dress, after he’s gotten her settled into a room in the mansion, for fuck’s sake, even after Johanna and Peeta have gone to see her, she still looks at him as if he is going to put a gun to her temple and shoot her in the head.

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he says, trying to sound convincing and failing miserably, if her humorless laughter is anything to go by.

“I have seen what they did to the other escorts,” she says dryly, and Haymitch flinches against his will.

“They made you watch that?”

She waves his question off like it’s an annoying bug, the first spark of her old demeanor since he’s found her cowering in that cell. “Why would I be any different?” she asks, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Why me?”

And that is the question, of course, Haymitch thinks, the question he stopped asking himself a long time ago: Why them? Why him and not Maysilee? Why Peeta but not Rue? Why Annie but not Finnick? He knows he could go on forever, but that way lays madness, and a man can skirt the borders of insanity only for so long before he loses his balance and falls.

“Perhaps just sheer luck,” he says, and isn’t sure if he meant that to be cruel or kind.

“Luck,” Effie repeats, as if she is trying the word out in her mouth for the very first time. Her gaze is vacant as she smiles.

“May the odds be in our favor.”

 

**Before:**

In their ninth year together, their tributes last a little bit longer than they usually do – not long enough, in the end, but long enough to give them hope. Every night, he and Effie make their rounds of the Capitol, talking, charming, convincing, and then, at some ungodly hour, they meet to regroup in the enormous suite in the training center provided to them for the duration of the Games.

It’s late on the seventh day of the Hunger Games when Haymitch returns from a despicably decadent dinner party only find a man exiting the apartment as he arrives. Haymitch recognizes him, has met him before, albeit merely fleetingly: It’s Sextus Conyngham, who serves on Snow’s city planning advisory committee and is as unpleasant to deal with as he is rich.

The man doesn’t bother pretending to be surprised. “She’s all yours,” he merely says with a smirk as he passes, and Haymitch feels something sour rise in his chest.

In the living area, Effie is sitting on the far edge of the luxurious couch, almost as if poised for flight. She is dressed, but her make-up is smudged, her dress askew, and there is a bruise blooming on the side of her neck that looks suspiciously like a bite. It’s the first time Haymitch has seen her this disheveled, and for a moment, he simply stands in the doorframe and stares.

Only when he clears his throat does she look up at him, not exactly proud, not really ashamed either, her gaze resigned and very still. “He will sponsor the medicine,” she says matter-of-factly, and Haymitch nods and is silent, because what is there to say? They all do what they have to do to make it through the Games. He does pour them heavy glasses of dark spicy liquor, though, and for once, she accepts the drink without protest.

He sits down next to her on the couch, a good foot of space between them, and watches her sip her drink in silence, staring into nothing, until he cannot take it anymore.

“Conyngham is a pompous ass,” he finally says, just to get some kind of reaction. He isn’t sure what he expects, denial perhaps or indignation, but it’s certainly not the hysterical giggle that escapes Effie’s mouth at his words. She appears to be surprised herself, slaps a hand over her mouth at once, but it’s too late, and after a moment, she seems to give up trying.

“He’s awful,” she agrees, in between squeaks of suppressed laughter, and Haymitch finds himself smiling with her, almost despite himself.

“Is this why you do it?” she asks, once the giggles quiet down, her face turning serious again.

Haymitch raises his brows in askance.

“This,” she gestures at him with her free hand, moving up and down his body in broad, generous strokes. “You, trying to make yourself look worse than you actually do.”

He blinks, taken aback. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of reasons why he has let himself go: addiction, self-hatred, stubborn and pointless resistance, but he has never considered that deception might be one of them. Still, it’s true that the bids on his body petered off once he started drinking in earnest, once it was known that he might be too drunk to perform, and he remembers feeling angrily, viciously glad that he was finally deemed too old, too unattractive, too district-ish to be fucked. It hadn’t been a conscious choice, he doesn’t think, but now he wonders if Effie hasn’t seen something he didn’t, if she wasn’t simply the first to realize that perhaps they are both wearing their own kind of mask.

He shrugs. “Unfortunately,” he finally sighs, because it saves him from giving an honest answer, and because it’s the truth, “being a victor means that even now, some people still seem to think I’m worth a tumble.”

She smiles faintly. “I never said your strategy was working,” she says, and knocks back the rest of her drink.

 

**After:**

In the end, it’s Beetee who tells Haymitch that the best they can do is put Effie back to work. Haymitch has his doubts, but Beetee has always had a curious mild fondness for Effie, even during her first year as escort when Haymitch could barely keep himself from slapping the wig off her head, and it’s what convinces Haymitch now to follow his advice.

As it turns out, the prospect of getting to dress Katniss has Effie perk up like nothing else since her release, as if the task allows her to slip back into a familiar dress she had forgotten and has just rediscovered at the bottom of her closet. When Haymitch goes to fetch her from her rooms, he finds her in front of the vanity, putting the final touches on her make-up. In all the years they were working together, she had never allowed him to witness the process of her transformation, but now she barely blinks when he leans against the wall with his hands in his pockets to watch her rebuild her mask, to watch her put on the armor that so efficiently and completely hides the person underneath.

“Back to normal at last,” he says, half relief, half wistful regret, and in the mirror, Effie shoots him an unreadable glance as she fastens an earring with barely shaking hands.

“You are mocking me,” she states, more tired than reproachful, but it’s enough to make him feel like an ass.

“Actually, I wasn’t,” he says truthfully, and then, because he is an awful person who is long beyond any kind of hope: “I’m just happy to see the old Effie in all her glittery glory again.”

From underneath raised brows, she stares at him, unimpressed. It’s a look he knows well enough, and he remembers the days when having it directed at him would raise his hackles like nothing else, and yet, all he feels now is gratitude, and an unasked-for stirring of helpless, terrible affection.

 

**Before:**

After the Conyngham affair, he doesn’t get to see Effie the Person for a very long time, but that might just as well be his own fault for not looking. Their tributes that year die, despite the medicine, despite all the other gifts he and Effie manage to procure, and it’s almost worse like this, to think that they might have made it, to think that they actually had a chance, only to be slaughtered like animals in the end after all.

Effie copes by insisting how proud she is that they made it that far, even if it’s with a strain to her voice and a twist to her mouth that he hasn’t seen on her before. Haymitch copes the only way he really knows: He drinks, and then keeps drinking. Getting up in the morning is becoming difficult, and so is going to sleep at night. Days stretch into months stretch into years, a dark blur of never-ending nightmares made bearable only by a state of constant intoxication – until the day he wakes up and finds himself sitting in a train car headed toward the Capitol, a butter knife stuck in the table next to his hand. Distantly, he hears Effie shout: “That is Mahagony!,” all classy wrath and righteous indignation, and for the first time in forever, he raises his eyes and actually looks.

He does not look away again for the remainder of the Games, as much as it costs him, as much as he sometimes wants to close his eyes. Katniss’ stubborn naiveté makes him want to throttle her at least once a day, and Peeta’s obvious infatuation is grating on his nerves, and yes, these two don’t deserve to live any more or less than any of the other children he has led to their deaths over the years, but for the first time since he was declared victor of the Games himself, what seems like an entire lifetime ago, Haymitch thinks at least one of them actually might.

When they both survive, battered but breathing, the gentle boy and the girl on fire, the entire Capitol is ecstatic, celebrating their victory as if it’s their own, partying as if there is no tomorrow. Haymitch wishes he could feel relieved, but he knows the Capitol too well, has seen enough victors, has been a victor himself for long enough to know that the Games aren’t over, for any of them. It’s the only reason he is still at one of their godforsaken parties, washing down expensive food with sickly-sweet drinks, instead of curling up in a dark corner with a bottle of lethal, honest white liquor like he yearns to do. He knows Snow will hear it if the victors’ mentor disappears too early tonight, and knows he might not be the one who will be punished for his absence. So he clenches his teeth, hides behind a glass of champagne in a corner of the ballroom and watches dancing couples spin by, a nauseating merry-go-round of colors and sound.

At some point, he spots Effie among the dancers, upright and graceful in her partner’s arms, a wide smile on her face as she converses with apparent ease. At least one of us is enjoying herself, he thinks wryly, and wonders why he feels so bitter at the thought.

Then Effie’s dance partner spins her, and for only a moment, Haymitch catches a glance at her face as she turns away from the man. It is long enough, though, to see the smile fall away from her features, to see the corners of her mouth turn down in a grimace of resignation and fatigue.

Without really thinking about it, he finds himself pushing away from the wall, striding through the crowd of dancers without paying much notice to the indignant stares sent his way. “I’m cutting in,” he says without much fanfare, tapping Effie’s dance partner on the shoulder, and doesn’t wait for the man to respond before he reaches for Effie’s hand.

“Rude,” she chides as he guides her back into the circle of spinning pairs, but the reproach is mild, and there is a tilt to her mouth that looks like reluctant, exasperated amusement.

“You looked like you could use a break from that sparkling conversationalist,” he says. She rolls her eyes at him like he expects, but then, to his shock, she lets her head fall against his shoulder in an abrupt movement, like an overgrown marionette whose strings have been cut. He glances down at her in confusion, and then carefully scans the crowd, to gauge whether someone is watching. They must be looking awfully cozy, he knows, and people will notice, people will talk. But then, Haymitch hasn’t cared about the state of his reputation in a very long time, and he thinks that all in all, they may have far bigger problems than whether some idiots in the Capitol think an escort is fucking the washed-up mentor of District 12.

Still: “Are you sure you are not confusing me for someone else?” he asks against the coils of her golden wig, and Effie sighs, the small exhale of air fanning along his neck.

“The tour is going to be awful,” she says, so quietly that he can only hear her because she is speaking right into his ear. “They’ll watch us the entire time. They’ll never leave them alone now, after what they did.”

Haymitch closes his eyes briefly. If even Effie realizes that they are in trouble, things are indeed going to be bad. “No, sweetheart,” he says tonelessly, and shakes his head. “No, they won’t.”

She lifts her head from his shoulder, and looks him right in the eye. For a split second, she is only Effie, a tired woman, unhappy, hopeless, kind. Then the mask slots back into place, a generic smile sliding into the corners of her mouth, her gaze turning indifferent and cold.

“I suppose it’s time to socialize, then,” she says airily, all Capitol flair. “We have a lot of work to do – no time to start like the present.”

Haymitch groans. Effie is right, of course, but after the horrors in the arena he has witnessed today, the thought of making small talk with any of the guests makes him feel like he is going to be sick. They have slowed down in their dancing during the conversation, and now he brings them to a halt, forcing other dancers to swing around them, ignoring their complaints. Effie steps away from him, sliding out of his grip, but her attention is still directed at him.

“You should leave,” she says casually, as if she is merely suggesting he try the smoked quail. “It’s a good time for it. People are drunk enough now that no one will notice.”

He frowns, prepared to disagree, and she makes a shooing motion with her hand before he can speak. “Go home,” she says, “we’ll have to come up with a plausible story for the media tomorrow, and I’d rather you weren’t too tired for it.”

“If you say so,” he says slowly, but he is too exhausted, too drained to hide his relief at the prospect of going home and falling into bed.

She turns, but over her shoulder, she gives him a small strained smile. “You are not a bad dancer, you know,” she says, and disappears into the crowd.

 

**After:**

She comes to him the night after Coin’s death, and it’s just his luck that he is tragically, miserably sober when this is the first time since the rebellion that she has actively sought him out.

She is still wearing the outfit from the execution, which looks a little worse for fear, but she doesn’t even seem to notice the streak of dirt running up her sleeve, nor the dark tracks in her make-up that look as if she has been crying and used her hand to wipe away the tears.

“Is this what you fought for?” she asks, standing over him while he stares up at her from his sprawl on the couch, and he hates that she chose this moment to ask the question he’s been waiting for all this time. “This is what you wanted? Chaos, violence, even more deaths?”

He sighs, and desperately wishes for a glass, a bottle, a crate of wine. “You know something had to change, Effie,” he says slowly, tiredly. “I know you saw it too. Even you must have known that we couldn’t go on like we did. Weren’t you tired of it, the pointless slaughtering? Sending all those children to their deaths?” He laughs quietly, unhappily. “Can’t say I ever paid much thought to what would come after. Truth be told, I never thought it would be up to me to figure that part out. I never thought I would survive the rebellion. Mostly, I think I was just hoping to give my death more meaning than my life ever had.”

She makes a choked noise, her hand trembling as she runs it across her eyes, smudging the make-up even further. “So this is what you sold me for? Your glorified suicide?”

“Sold you for?” he repeats, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”

For but a moment, she glares at him, then she deflates, falling into the armchair across from the couch like she suddenly feels too weak to keep herself upright. “You think I didn’t know that something was going on?” she asks. “You think I didn’t know that you were planning something? All those secret meetings with the other mentors when you were supposed to look for sponsors – I was the one who planned your schedule, didn’t you think I would notice? Don’t you think I noticed that Finnick Odair, of all people, was wearing the bracelet I gave to you, the first day of the Games?”

He stares at her, shell-shocked. “You never said anything,” he finally says, helplessly, and she laughs, angry and shrill.

“What could I have said?” she asks bitterly. “You clearly didn’t want me to know, and anyone else … how could I have said anything to anyone else? After Cinna disappeared, all of a sudden … of course I knew what they had done to him. I knew what they would do to you.” She stills, her shoulders sagging. “I wasn’t going to get you killed.”

“I’m sorry, Effie,” Haymitch says quietly, and he means it, for all the good that’s going to do. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. But you know I didn’t have a choice.”

“You could have told me!” she protests, her anger flaring again. “You could have trusted me. We were a team, remember? You could have asked me to come with you instead of just leaving me behind!”

“And you would have come?” Haymitch asks sarcastically. “You would have betrayed your government and joined the rebellion at my say-so?”

She exhales a trembling sigh, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’ know,” she admits, her voice small and helpless. “I don’t know.” She pauses, resigned. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Nothing really matters anymore. Everything is going to change.”

He looks at her then, takes in her ruined make-up, her ridiculous dress, her reddened eyes, and marvels once again at the strange irony of fate that has kept the two of them alive, when so many younger, better people have died; wonders what it says about the future of the new Panem that it’s going to be built on the shoulders of people like her and him, cynical, selfish, weak.

He feels every year of his age weighing down his bones as he rises from the couch with effort and crosses the room, as he lowers himself down to the ground next to her chair, gripping the armrest with both hands.

“I am not going to promise you that everything is going to be fine,” he says. “I gave up on believing in promises a long time ago. But for what it’s worth, I am glad that you made it. For what it’s worth, I think you are going to be alright. You are well-practiced in the skill of transformation. Eventually, you’ll get used to this change as well.”

She looks down at him for a long time, as if she is searching for something in his eyes, though if she finds it, he cannot say. “And what about you, Haymitch?” she asks at last. “What’s going to happen to you?”

“Me?” he smirks, shrugging his shoulders as if it’s going to let him shrug off her focused gaze. “I just hope they’ll finally leave me alone, so I can crawl into a hole with a bottle of liquor to die in peace.”

“Oh Haymitch,” she says, and his name almost sounds like a sob from her mouth. She reaches out to touch his face, her hand still as cool and smooth as he remembers, and just like back then, he thinks he should pull away, but can’t help turning into the touch.

She smiles, a watery, shaky smile, unstudied and awkward and real, and it’s that smile that makes him reach up to kiss her, without much thought and without finesse. He half expects her to flinch away, but instead she sighs into the kiss as if something in her is coming apart, opens up when he presses forward as her slender fingers cradle his jaw.

“This is a terrible idea,” he murmurs into her lips, and she laughs tonelessly, less a sound than a vibration against his skin.

“You’ve always had the most terrible ideas,” she says, “I really don’t know why I like you.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” he says quietly, and kisses her again.

 

**Before:**

On the screen, Beetee is preparing to bring down the force field around the arena, and Haymitch knows it’s high time for him to leave.

He looks down at Effie, fast asleep in front of the running television, the empty wineglass tumbled over in her lap, spilled wine leaving red stains on her pale green dress. Unconsciousness has stripped away the mask, leaving her features looking vulnerable and soft. She’ll hate him for the ruined dress, he thinks, and wonders if she might not be more willing to forgive him the sleeping draught in her drink than the fact that he gets to see her like this, sprawled out loosely on the couch, her head rolling sideways against the backrest, her mouth open, jaw slack.

He reaches out carefully and plucks the wineglass from her lap, deposits it safely on the coffee table where she won’t break it when she wakes.

“Goodbye, Effie,” he says, almost to himself. “I know you would not believe me if you heard me say it, but I think we did make a pretty decent team.”

 

**After:**

She’s got a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, rendered in shades of purple with accents of gold. It is the only body modification he has detected, and he has certainly studied her body closely enough; had expected body paint when he first unwrapped her, even scales or feathers maybe; was surprised to unlace her corset and find nothing but miles of pale soft skin underneath. He’ll have to ask her about that later, he thinks - for now, though, there is the tattoo, and when he stretches out on top of her, his chest pressed tightly against her back, he can tilt his head and easily kiss it, trace its contours gently with his tongue.

She has her face turned the other way on the pillow, but when he lifts his head a little, he can see her profile, can see her smile. She moves her arm, and the butterfly shifts, begins to tremble, as if the creature is testing its wings. Haymitch rests his chin on her shoulder blade and watches, half-waiting for it to fly away.


End file.
